Former Aspenite Justin Leonard eagles final hole to notch his second victory of 2025 PGA Tour Champions season
By Gary Baines – 10/19/2025
Former Aspen resident Justin Leonard won for the second time in 2025 on PGA Tour Champions — and he did it in fairytale fashion on Sunday.
Two holes after making birdie to keep himself in the hunt for the title, Leonard drained a 20-foot eagle putt on No. 18 to capture the title at the first event of the PGA Tour Champions Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs.
Leonard, who lived in Aspen full time from 2015-22, rallied from a three-stroke deficit going into the final round of the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Va. He went 66-70-68 for a 12-under-par total, which was one better than World Golf Hall of Famer Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn.
“To be able to make a putt when you know you have to make it to have a chance, it’s a really cool feeling,” said Leonard, who became the first player to win a Champions event by one with an eagle on the final hole since Ken Tanigawa at the 2018 PURE Insurance Championship.
Leonard is on quite a roll lately on PGA Tour Champions as his last five finishes have been second, seventh, 11th, fifth and first.
Leonard, now in ninth in the Charles Schwab Cup standings, will join two other players with strong Colorado ties — David Duval (44th) and Shane Bertsch (46th) — in advancing to the next Playoff event, the Simmons Bank Championship, which starts Friday in Little Rock, Ark. That tournament will feature a 54-man field.
For all the scores from the Dominion Energy Charity Classic, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com